Tales from Soho

by David Barry

  He scribbled the poem, which took him no longer than five minutes, on a sheet of paper from a writing pad, slipped it into a matching envelope, attached it to the parcel and, feeling pleased with a job well done, rushed out to the post office. Once the parcel had been despatched, he jumped in a taxi and headed for the Star and Garter in Soho where he sat on a bar stool and regaled some of the regulars with amusing stories and filthy rhymes.

  He never ever thought about the dinner jacket again. As far as he was concerned, the generosity of his poetic gift had wiped the slate clean.

  When the parcel arrived two days later at the gentleman’s outfitters in Garrick Street, staff stared at it suspiciously, and one of them suggested humorously that they ought to call out the army bomb disposal unit. The manager of the store was summonsed to review the situation as not one member of staff wanted to touch the errant package. The manager sniffed suspiciously, certain he could detect an unpleasant, earthy smell, then removed the envelope and slid out the note. His eyes bulged as he tried to comprehend its message. It read:

  “Dear Brothers Moss,

  Sorry for the loss.

  Dylan Thomas”

  Ronnie’s Manor

  Whenever we got nostalgic for Soho and its characters, the first name that cropped up would always be Ronnie Price, who vanished off the scene one day, and no one knows to this day what became of him.

  Back in the late fifties, Soho was like a village. We all used to drink in the same watering holes: The Coach and Horses, the George, the French House, to name but a few. It was teeming with characters back then, and Ronnie Price was like an actor playing the part of a Soho reprobate. He must have been about thirty back then. He had medium length, dark brilliantined hair. Bit of a Tony Curtis look. Used to wear mohair suits. Short bloke, no more than about 5’ 4” top whack. A real ducker and diver; constantly looking over his shoulder, like a bird hopping about in a park garden, one eye out for danger. Fingers in pies man. Always bordering on the dishonest, but nothing too lavish. Everyone knew him. And I think everyone liked him. At least, that was my impression. Even John Jolly, also known as Fingers, a bonebreaker by trade, let our Ronnie off the hook for a stunt he had the audacity to pull. Only someone of Ronnie’s mentality would have chanced his arm and scammed a bonebreaker like Fingers. I think that’s why people were drawn to Ronnie. He was naïve to the point of lunacy.

  The incident I’m talking about was when our man of the world does some work as a bookie’s runner. He was hanging about in Old Compton Street one day, keeping a lookout for the fuzz, when up comes Fingers. He wants to put a fifty quid bet on a thirty-three to one outsider. Ronnie looks at him like he’s lost it, but you don’t argue with a bonebreaker. He takes the bet, intending to go round to Tosher’s to place it. But on his way to Tosher’s he gets waylaid by one of the watering holes in our manor, and in he pops for a large Vera, which was his tipple. While he’s imbibing, and listening to the cheerful banter of the natives, he overhears some discussion going on about the same horse race that Fingers has asked him to place a bet on. These punters reckon the favourite’s going to romp it, and outsiders have got no chance. So Ronnie decides to stick the bet. He knew it was risky. But pocketing what amounted to almost two months wages back then, by not betting on a gee-gee that could end up in the knackers yard, was so tempting he decided to go with it. Trouble was, if it won he’d be right up shit creek, owing Fingers a sum that could buy you a reasonable gaff in Chingford.

  Back in his scuzzy little Soho flat, Ronnie switches the radio on for the big race. By now he is shitting himself, and starting to have second thoughts. But it’s too late. They’re under orders, and they’re off. So far so good. Dockers Yacht, which is the horse in question, hasn’t been mentioned once. It seems to be a race between first and second favourite. Then Ronnie hears the news he’s feared all along. Only two furlongs to go and Dockers Yacht is making good ground. I can imagine how Ronnie must have felt, cringing into his dilapidated old easy chair, shivering with fear. Then he hears Dockers Yacht romping home past the post. He is beside himself. And to add insult to injury, the shilling in the electricity meter runs out and he is plunged into a silence that signifies death and gloom and cold morgues. He sees himself laid out on a slab, and he panics, knowing Fingers will soon track him down.

  Ronnie has no clear plan, but he knows he has to get out of the flat. Of course, he could have moved to another manor, left Soho and emigrated to Hammersmith or Chiswick. But our kid isn’t thinking straight. He can no more leave Soho than Elvis can leave the US of A.

  So by now he is quite literally ducking and diving around the manor. He thinks he sees Fingers at the top end of Greek Street and dives into a frothy coffee bar, an establishment he has always avoided like a dose. And to make matters worse, it is one of those gimmicky hovels where tourists and day trippers sit in coffins, surrounded by heaps of junk like the setting of a horror film.

  So Ronnie is sitting in a coffin, and who walks in but Fingers. He spotted our lad and has come to find him. Fingers looks calm, and Ronnie wonders if he’ll do him here, in front of all the customers. He starts babbling, pleading with Fingers, saying he’ll do anything, even if he has to work for the next ten years to pay him back with interest. At first, Fingers hasn’t a clue what he’s on about. Then he twigs.

  ‘You little arsehole,’ he says. ‘You stuck the bet.’

  Ronnie can’t speak. He is numb with terror, and the tacky décor of the coffee bar has taken on a truly sinister appearance. Suddenly, Fingers holds out the flat of his hand, and Ronnie cringes with fear.

  ‘Give me back my fifty notes,’ Fingers demands.

  Ronnie is puzzled. The bonebreaker is demanding only fifty quid, which Ronnie still has in his pocket. As he hastily hands over the money, Fingers explains:

  ‘There was a steward’s enquiry after the race, and Dockers Yacht came nowhere. It was disqualified. So how come you didn’t know that?’

  Almost tearfully, Ronnie says: ‘The shilling went in my meter, just after your horse went past the post.’

  The bonebreaker laughs, because he is happy he still has his money. Then the laughter freezes on his face, and he leans forward and warns Ronnie that if ever he sticks a bet again, then he’ll break every bone in his body. After Fingers has departed, Ronnie almost weeps at the injustice of it all. If it hadn’t been for his poxy electricity running out, he could have pocketed the bull’s eye and the bonebreaker would never have known. And this is when he discovers he has no money to pay for his frothy coffee. But that is the least of his worries, doing a runner from a tacky tourist trap. The kid legs it, and stays away from Greek Street for a while.

  And that’s what Ronnie was like. Always following his instinct, chasing a few bob here and there without raking in the shekels. A bit of a loser. But, like I said, a Soho character. And where would our manor have been without all these colourful creeps? But the wonderful thing about guys like Ronnie is their amazing ability to bounce back.

  Not long after the betting incident, Ronnie gets the big idea. Way above his station. Talks big time, and fancies himself as a record producer, even though he knows not a crotchet from a hatchet. No matter. He has seen three chord herberts making much spondoolicks, and he is going to have some of that. But first he needs to find his gravy train. One day he jumps on a Piccadilly Line and heads for the wilds of Acton Town to do some dodgy deal with Jack the Nose who happens to live out in the sticks. Our kid is walking along the leafier lanes of west London when the heavens open up; a church hall happens to be conveniently near, so in he pops to shelter his mohair from the rain.

  This is when he discovers three youngsters rehearsing their skiffle group. The lead singer, Ronnie clocks, may not be talented in the vocal department but he has fantastic looks. So it is now, he decides, that he must launch his new career. Money, success and fame beckon. And Ronnie has learnt enough about the r
ecord industry to know that echo chambers and recording techniques can make these little toe-rags sound reasonable. He’s even taken to using phrases like ‘augment the sound with strong backing’, even though he hasn’t a clue what it means.

  He introduces himself to the youngsters, giving them the big I am. They are too simple to see through Ronnie, who can sometimes impress when it comes to the gab. And anyone west of Knightsbridge Ronnie regards as a country bumpkin. So it’s not long before he has these three herberts eating out of his hand. Then comes the shrewd move. He singles out the good-looking lad, giving him some spiel about a recording test, and how he must journey up to Soho, which is now the hub of the music industry. The youngster, who I think was called Trevor Smith, is by now wetting himself with dreams of fame and fortune, and sees himself strumming and strutting in the cellar of the 2 i’s coffee bar. If a Bermondsey cabin boy can become an overnight success, he thinks, then so can an Acton Town bakery assistant.

  So it’s not very long before Ronnie’s showing him the sights of our village. And our kid soon susses that the naïve and star-struck youngster has been saving up to buy his fiancée a ring, which in those days was the only way to get a bird’s drawers off, the engagement making it official and respectable, like.

  So now Ronnie hits the lad with the agency joining fee, to cover the cost of photographs, publicity, etc., and the thirty quid engagement ring money soon finds its way into Ronnie’s wallet. He reassures the lad that you have to speculate in this life, and he’ll pretty soon be making a couple of thou. So far so good. Who knows: Ronnie just might have got his hair-brained scheme off the ground and got the lad a recording contract. But what no one knew, or even suspected, was that Ronnie’s sexual proclivities were not as straightforward as he had led us to believe. He’d always had loads of girlfriends, but with the benefit of hindsight, I realise they were accessories. A smokescreen to hide his true leanings. And this is where it all goes horribly wrong for our kid. He gives Trevor, who is by now known as Ricky Cool, some more cock and bull about owning a big house in Harrow-on-the-Hill, and asks him back to his flat in Soho, using the lie about the house in Harrow to explain the scuzziness of his cramped pad, which in all honesty, he explains to the witless lad, is used merely as an office, or for getting his head down after a hard grind dashing from one recording studio to another.

  As soon as they are tucked away in his sleazy dwelling, Ronnie, who is by now totally smitten with the lad, can’t keep his feelings to himself any longer, and grabs the youngster’s Hampton.

  The lad is surprised and shocked, but he doesn’t want to jeopardise his career in the music business, so at first he copes by merely pushing Ronnie’s hand away.

  ‘Oh, come on, Ricky,’ pleads our kid. ‘We’ll just wank each other. That’s all.’

  The lad is disgusted and protests that he’s not like that, but Ronnie won’t take no for an answer and grabs him again. The youngster strikes out, and pretty soon Ronnie has a bloody nose. Dashing out of the flat, screaming blue murder and threatening to call the police, the youngster makes it down the four flights, but is stopped by the proprietor of the newsagent’s on the ground floor, who is also Ronnie’s landlord. And not wanting to lose a tenant, albeit a spasmodic payer, he manages to pacify the lad, and avert a nasty situation where the fuzz might have to be called, which, to a newsagent who deals in porn magazines from under his counter, is not ideal. Being an older bloke, he gives the lad some avuncular reassurance, and then sends him packing back to Acton Town, where he probably spent the rest of his days baking bread and apple turnovers.

  As for Ronnie, he went to ground for four or five days. But word had got around about the scene at his flat, and when he resurfaced at one of his watering holes, the natives gave him some friendly banter along the lines of: ‘It’s OK, Ronnie, we’ll just wank!’

  You could see Ronnie hated it. And the more he hated it, the worse the banter flew at him. Maybe if he’d tolerated it for a few weeks, it might have blown over. But as the weeks went by, nobody noticed that Ronnie wasn’t part of the scene anymore. Life’s like that. Someone who’s a pub regular might not come in for a while, and everyone thinks they’re busy doing something else. And that’s how it was with Ronnie. You’d often not see him at some of his favourite watering holes for weeks on end, either because he owed someone, or had some dodgy deals going on in another part of the manor. But then someone happened to talk to his landlord after a month had passed, and Ronnie had vanished. Cleared out his flat and disappeared. No one saw him leave. Just like no one remembers him arriving. He was just an element of our manor, weaving in and out of the streets like quicksilver. He had dozens of acquaintances but few friends. Which was why we knew very little about him. He was a man without a past, as if he had merely existed for the time he spent ducking and diving around our manor, like a character in a film that exists only for the length of their screen time.

  I often used to wonder about the sense of shame that had driven him away. Was the disgrace of confronting his true sexuality worse than thinking his life was in danger when he thought he owed Fingers a small fortune? Or maybe he was just plain scared of going to jail for attempted homosexual rape. After all, homosexuality was illegal back then. Perhaps he thought there might be some backlash from the youngster’s parents. Especially when it was discovered that he’d taken the lad’s engagement ring savings. Whatever the reason, Ronnie ceased to exist.

  I tried to imagine what became of him or where he went, but I gave up after a while. I just couldn’t see him fitting in anywhere else. He was a Soho creation, and Soho needed characters like him. With Ronnie’s hair-brained schemes and adventures, there was always plenty to keep the watering holes buzzing. Like the time he sold blue movies to Deaf Dave, which turned out to be a load of Keystone Cop films.

  But that’s another story.

  Nude With No Name

  Sandra Dorland had always been unconventional - perhaps even borderline eccentric - and lived each day as it came, never dwelling on the past or thinking about what the future would bring. She was excessively theatrical, and many of her friends and acquaintances described her as “camp”. If you didn’t know her, you could be forgiven for mistakenly thinking she was an actress.

  And just to add to her own mystique and legend, she was of no fixed abode. Not that she was homeless or struggling - quite the opposite. She resided permanently in a small hotel in Fitzrovia. She had worked as a literary agent for many years, had never married, but had an affair with a world-renowned American author, whom she represented in the UK - an affair which lasted many years, although it was only ever when the author visited London, which he did several times a year for periods of two or three weeks, although he occasionally took her on weekend breaks to European cities. He also never married, and when he died he bequeathed his entire estate to her. She retired in her early-fifties, sold her small flat, and because she no longer had her occasional lover to visit her cosy South Kensington love-nest, she decided to break with convention and live a more bohemian, though hedonistically comfortable, lifestyle; one where she never again had to experience the drudge of domestic chores. Her small hotel had everything she needed, especially the minuscule bar and dining area, which she occasionally frequented; but more often than not she dallied in Soho with all her rather louche friends, many of whom were involved in the performing or visual arts. Of course, like many serious drinkers, there were those hangers-on, who pretended they were involved in artistic enterprises, but were mere boozers leaching off the artistic set. And, more often than not, they were readily accepted into the artistic faction, a group of outgoing people who were not usually judgemental, and were often too drunk to make a distinction between bogus artists and legitimate talents.

  Because of the licensing laws in the seventies, pubs shut in the afternoons, and opened again for early-doors drinking at 5.30, so there were many small drinking clubs in Soho and London’s West E
nd. And most days, from about three o’clock onwards, Sandra propped up the bar of Sam’s Place, a Members Only club above a tobacconist and newsagent’s. But all that was about to change.

  It happened one weekday afternoon in April in the mid-seventies. Sandra was as usual holding forth at Sam’s Place, competing with artist Oliver Harding for the laurel crown of being the most outspoken or outrageous raconteur. On this occasion, Harding seemed to be winning by half a furlong as he had launched into a story about an orgy he had once attended, which was nowhere near as exciting as orgies were cracked up to be, totally underrated, and an experience he definitely had no intention of repeating. All of this tripping loudly off his tongue, hurriedly and breathlessly, so that he could enthral his listeners without fear of interruption.

  Ken Smith, a walk-on in films and television, laughed loudly, hanging on Harding’s every word, as if this were the Gospel According to St Matthew.

  Perry Simpson, a choreographer of showgirl extravaganzas, listened intently, clearly searching for loopholes in Harding’s story. He couldn’t imagine this robust, overweight and bloated artist being invited to attend an orgy, unless one of the revellers wanted a quid pro quo painting, for Harding’s pictures sold for a fair price.

  The fifth person in the group was Margaret - no one knew her surname - and from odd snippets of conversation they dragged out of her, they thought she might have been a wig-maker for the theatre. She was the peripheral listener of their group, a role she was quite content to occupy, leaving others to provide the amusing anecdotes.

  Harding was just about to reach the end of his story, desperately trying to think of an amusing pay-off, when Sandra’s eagle-eye spotted three empty glasses, and she pounced during a brief pause in Harding’s story to offer everyone a drink.